


Fall In Love

by Bobblychicken



Category: Cars (Movies), Planes (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 21:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8118913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bobblychicken/pseuds/Bobblychicken
Summary: There is a thin line between love and hate. Some would even say, as Dusty and Ripslinger discover as they race one another to the very limits of their capabilities, that they are one and the same. Title inspired by Phantogram's "Fall In Love".





	

A P-51 Racing Mustang flies, green and black, checker-marked, and flashing in the sun. He twists and he turns, swooping up, spinning and diving, for hot on his tail is a small, orange and white airplane that he is matching for every move as the larger racer desperately tries to keep his lead. The orange and white plane is very close now; the P-51 can almost feel his panting breaths on his tail before he suddenly tips his nose up, leaning over before spinning over into another steep dive. They pull back up into the cloud cover, the Mustang aiming to use it to try and trip up his smaller opponent. It works and it doesn't. They trade positions once or twice, and once back down below are back where they started, with the orange and white racer continuing his dogged pursuit.

Normally he would have no problem outrunning the smaller plane, but this was not Dusty's first rodeo. Not by a long-shot. And with him being admittedly much more maneuverable than he, Ripslinger was sweating. He wasn't going to simply sprint his way to victory this time as he had so many other times over the course of his career. Dusty was making sure of that as he came down into the P-51's seven o' clock position. He dove as Ripslinger did, shrewdly keeping watch for any opening he could take advantage of to take the lead from him.

The snowy landscape flew away underneath them as the two aircraft pulled back up again, alabaster mountain ranges dotted with icy lakes. Winter rallies were a rare thing in the air racing industry; there was only one that took place in the US. They raced over the tip tops of thick swaths of conifers, their powdered, prickly needles just barely scraping their bellies. Then Ripslinger suddenly put on a burst of speed, pulling left as his wing-tip dipped down slicing through the top of a taller fir, sending it hurtling back toward Dusty like a spear. The former crop-duster's eyes widened. He was following much too close, and barely had time to pull up to keep the half-frozen javelin from going straight through his windshield. Instead it cut him badly just under his right eye, and his rage-filled scream could just be heard over the roaring of his engine as he went charging after his checker-marked adversary.

Ripslinger dropped back down again, flying low in amongst the peaks, but Dusty did not follow. He continued flying over the jagged rocks, then, rolling, dropped down the next slope, still failing to cut the larger plane off. Twisting, turning, and weaving, both engines in the red, the two racers were trading positions once again as they raced through white canyons. Only this time, when they came out from the other side, Dusty had taken the lead, just as black smoke began trailing off his left side from his exhaust.

Pushing just that much harder through the pain, he only glanced at his gauges for a second before turning his eyes back up for the horizon, straining in determined fury to keep his lead. Now it was his turn to try to keep ahead of Ripslinger, fouling the green and black Mustang for every move he tried to make while at the same time trying to prevent him from calling his bluffs and simply knocking him out of the sky, which was what he was attempting now. Then Dusty suddenly took a sharp nose-dive, Ripslinger following him right down, exactly what he was counting on. Lids drawn down in unflinching focus, he didn't blink as the ground rapidly seemed to rush up toward him, but Ripslinger new better than to be drawn into a game of chicken and pulled up, taking back his lead.

Dusty, smarting bitterly from another failure, was back up in no time, swooping and diving and worrying the larger plane like the crow mobs the hawk. This was no longer a race. Neither plane had any idea of when it happened, let alone any perception of the transition at all, but now it was an out-and-out dog-fight, and they were a tangle of desperate spins, rolls, and lurches as each were solely focused on trying to drop the other. Seeing red as the needles on their fuel gauges steadily made their way around the dial, plumes of smoke poured from both of their engines as they fought, taking turns attacking, chasing, dodging. Yells and shouts of pain and their efforts drowned out by the thunder of their engines at their highest limits.

Before long their indicators were both flashing in warning that their fuel would soon be gone, but neither took any heed. They continued to dive and strafe at each other, hydraulic fluid already bleeding from so many cuts and slashes where their prop blades had hit their marks, until at last their instinct of self-preservation finally broke through, only to the realization that there was no place to land. They peeled away, dropping their altitude and scanning futilely for any flat places. Both aircraft spotted a shallow slope, blanketed snow, and inwardly prayed that that blanket was thick. They both hit, roughly, the uneven ground tripping them up and causing them both to go crashing to the ground and sliding to a stop. Immediately they were back on their wheels, shaking the snow from their frames. Ripslinger and Dusty turned to look at one another, steamy breaths billowing in the chill and mixing with the smoke and steam from their engines. Panting heavily as oil dripped and leaked from one or more of their exhausts, a numb sort of resignation came to them.

At that moment, in the sunset showing gold on the snow all around them, for one beat of a pulse their situation shone before both planes. They grasped it and realized what it meant. Then the next it was all thrown out the window as they reared slightly before they both charged, eyes nothing more than dark pits of hatred as their jaws opened wide with sharp teeth poised to rend and destroy. They met, more hydraulic fluid splattering red all over the snow upon impact. There was no strategy. No bother for defense. Just pure, unadulterated rage as all of their focus was on attacking. Engines snarling, they ripped and tore at each other's bodies, going for the wings, landing gear, and for one another's faces. Biting, holding, and shaking, teeth going through plating like saw blades, their frames already wracked with so much pain that any extra inflicted now was a mere trifle.

Dusty went down, but only for a second as he surged back upward, nearly being brought down a second time before sinking his teeth into Ripslinger's right wing where his landing gear was and shaking savagely. The P-51 may have been twice his size and several times his weight, but Dusty was Skipper's Bonded Companion after all, and after so many years under the fellow warbird's tutelage was used to larger opponents and could fight like the devil. They span on the ground, never once breaking from each other as they reared, bit, bucked, and struck with their wings. With a tremendous effort Dusty reared up and forced all of his weight down into his landing gear, stomping against Ripslinger's flank with such a force that the larger plane was caught by surprise and knocked to the ground. Before the orange and white plane could take advantage of his prone position and scramble up higher to deal a crushing blow behind his canopy with his jaws, Ripslinger was back up on his landing gear.

For a time, the two planes had ceased attacking at that point. They stood, leaning exhaustedly against one another, feeling each's breaths blasting across their mutilated plating as their sides heaved. Their eyes were wild and distant with agony, delirium, and an almost cannibalistic animosity as nitrous oxide that had been building up over the course of the race was fast approaching dangerous levels. Then, ignoring the protests of their bodies and very instincts, their engines rumbled back up as they resumed their fight, picking up where they left off as Dusty began biting and chomping, trying to get a purchase against Ripslinger's side as the larger plane turned into him on his landing gear, attempting the same. He eventually warded Dusty off before he could succeed, and as the smaller plane gathered himself up on the ground in preparation for another attack to that vital place behind the Mustang's canopy, he met him half-way, swinging his body down and up and knocking Dusty a good distance away.

The former crop-duster was back on his landing gear in an instant, snarling. The two aircraft advanced slowly, limping on their damaged landing gear, circling and growling with bared teeth as hydraulic fluid mixed and dripped with the slaver from their jaws. Then Ripslinger lunged at Dusty, jaws agape and closing on thin air while the orange and white plane darted to the side and, turning in his own path and jumping up where his own teeth met his mark, sinking deeply into the side of the green and black plane's nose. He screamed in fury as Dusty began shaking back and forth, tossing and flailing in desperation to dislodge him. His jaws crunching and squeezing, he was very near to breaking through to the engine compartment before Ripslinger was able to throw Dusty off of him. The smaller plane was barely back up before the checker-marked racer leaped forward and landed full against him.

His great weight was pushing now, caught in the crooks of each other's wings, against Dusty's. Side by side, they bit and snapped at one another's fuselages. The former crop-duster felt himself sliding slowly backward. He could not resist the tremendous force. His wheels, gripping futilely, furrowed in the snow as he gave ground. In a few moments he would be pushed off the side of the cliff and sent plummeting down into the dark canyon below. Putting his last strength into the effort to at least remain where he was, he loosed his teeth from Ripslinger's frame and dropped his nose down, like an ox straining at a load, and still he was slipping. Then, very gradually it seemed, the terrible pressure began to slacken. Dusty's wheels caught ground, and Ripslinger, teeth sunk in his back, was snuffling and choking. The bite to his nose inflicted earlier by Dusty had caused a breach between his engine and respiratory system; the intake on his right side was now full of the oil that had been leaking from his torn up engine, and with his jaws closed in Dusty's frame he could not properly draw his breath. A moment more and he finally gave up his hold and sprung back and away. Dusty, utterly exhausted, remained where he was.

They faced each other, barely able to hold up their noses and sagging heavily into their landing gear as they gasped and panted for breath, tongues hanging as they labored. A light snow had begun to fall. P-51 and former crop-duster were mere shadows of themselves. Their wings were ripped to shreds, their frames dented and butchered. Hydraulic fluid stained and smeared most of their paint, covering almost the whole fronts of their bodies, not to say the least of the snow that had turned red underneath them. Anyone looking upon them now wouldn't even have recognized them. But that was so far from either plane's mind. Their friends, their fans, the race; none of it existed. They were blind to the world around them apart from each other, and their battered engines began to growl lowly as each braced to charge yet again, eyes narrowing as the snowfall began to thicken. The charge was clumsy, their movements sluggish and uncoordinated as they clashed. Their wheels slipped in the snow as they fought to stay up on their landing gear, biting with all their diminishing strength as the light that had been fading from their eyes began to flicker.

Meanwhile, at the finish line, the other racers were flying in and taking their places across it. Confusion abounded amongst the crowd and the race officials. Where were their two headliners? They had been battling it out for first place before going into the mountains and out of camera range the last time they were seen. All eyes were turned, concerned and perplexed, out on the horizon, waiting for two of history's most famous racers to appear. Back in the mountains, the sun having set, the two planes lay still in the snow, for all the world, if it weren't for the expressions of pain and exhaustion frozen on their faces, looking as if in a tender embrace as the snowfall slowly and ever so gently covered them over.


End file.
